How... selfish this all sounds. Like the universe can only be perceived in one way, by one specific group of people, and all the rest are false. It's rather disturbing that this is the sort of thing the Minister of Education in my province will be trying to shove down the metaphorical throats of public school students next year when her new curriculum is being test-driven in some of the K-6 schools. They've removed dinosaurs from the science curriculum and shoehorned Sunday School lessons into the social studies curriculum with not even a token attempt at being unbiased. I'd love to hear why non-belief in any god(dess), spirit, or other paranormal entity is "BS." Why should you have to "confess" it? It's not a moral failing or anything illegal.
Excuse me...show me the gun I'm holding to anybody's head forcing them to agree with my take. I literally started the post with the assertion that this is how I (me myself and ) see the subject. Not a group, not a people, ME. And if you'd read the follow up posts you'd see the argument laid out that I am most assuredly in the minority on said take among Catholics and Christians at large, so it's not like I'm leading or part of some viral cult. I had a response to the OP and I made that response to the OP. That's it. Tragic, but I'm not your Minister of Education and I like dinosaurs, so exactly what the fuck is your problem with me? My opinion and I can't effect your life In any way.
I would love to hear why it is perfectly acceptable to denounce belief in a Creator as BS and equally unacceptable to denounce the opposite. Because where I'm sitting, that reeks of hypocrisy.
Well, for one thing, non-belief in a creator doesn't require a heap of arbitrary convoluted fantastic assumptions. Non-belief doesn't rest on the unconditional support of a long tedious self-contradicting text of dubious origin and a set of odd idiosyncratic gestures and rituals. Non-belief doesn't make someone beat the shit out of his neighbor for cracking an egg on the round end, instead of the narrow end.
On the other hand, belief in a Creator doesn't require us to believe in spontaneous generation, a completely unscientific concept that Louis Pasteur debunked in 1859. We might call it "abiogenesis" now, but the principle is the same: life "happening". Enough already. This MB does not condone religious or political discussion. You want to debate with me on this subject, let's do it where it's allowed.
"spontaneous generation"? Are you serious? Nobody believes in that! What you're referring to is the obsolete belief that mice appeared in filthy rags. People back then didn't have the slightest notion of things like DNA or even microorganisms. Louis Pasteur couldn't possibly anticipate the plethora of discoveries that have been made in a century and a half!!! A bit self-serving of you to draw the line AFTER you've added kindling in the fire, don't you think?
Show me where I said you were holding a gun to anyone's head. I never said you were a cult leader. My problem is not with you. My problem is with what you believe, and I mentioned the school curriculum issue because it's a current (and controversial) event in my province. You just happened to wax eloquently about the sort of stuff that should never be forced into any public elementary school curriculum. Believe whatever you want. But when you force it on students in a secular school system (proselytizing to what is basically a captive audience since all students are required to attend school), when you insist that it's scientific (where's the evidence?), when you make arbitrary rules about what is and isn't "moral" and use that to mock or punish those who don't believe as you do, that's a problem. This is hilarious. Almost the same argument is happening on another forum, with almost the same bizarre misconceptions spouted by people who think they understand atheism and what atheists do and don't think. Sorry, I must have missed the moderator's badge under your name. If you want to discuss it further, I don't mind a PM conversation.
I'm sorry, what are you talking about? This is literally one of the two fora on the board where such discussion is allowed. That's why the other mod directed the OP here in the first place. The only restriction in this forum, is that you have to abide by the board rules, keep things civil, post not poster, etc. You are allowed to debate and disagree about the topic and your beliefs, you just can't get personal. And people have been generally abiding by that here. Let's try to keep it that way.
That doesn't explain why criticism of one is "acceptable" and the other is not. It's simply a restatement of your opinions of the two positions.
I never said that one was acceptable and the other not. I just said what one usually implied and the other not. I have yet to encounter a religious belief that at some point doesn't require you to accept a bunch of fantastic assumptions (like miracles for example), except maybe for deism and that's essentially an intellectual construct.
And I still don't see why what I believe is a problem for you since it's just my belief and I'm not going out of my way to make you or anyone else believe it too. So let me get this straight: The OP asks how Christians reconcile the idea of a trinity with the notion that Christianity is monotheistic. I, as a member of a Christian religion, explained how I reconciled it, and out of all the religious posts in this thread, mine shakes you to the bone because I articulated it clearly? Okay, let's start with something we agree on: I don't think any kind of religious education should be forced on any public school students either. Heck, I went to religious schools from first grade to twelfth and I wasn't crazy about the religious education I had to endure there. The point is, religion is not science and it's not history and the only places where it should be part of the curriculum are schools where teaching about the religion is the point. With that said, while I don't see how you managed to connect what I stated with a minister I've never heard of in a country I'm not in forcing religion onto a school system I don't have any kids in, there are numerous solutions to your problem. If the minister is a problem, vote him out. If you've got to vote out his whole party, vote them out. If voting out religious idiots isn't an option for you, protest the decision in whatever medium available. If protesting will get you shot, keep your kids out of the school system and home-school them. If keepng your kids out school gets the local family services busybodies knocking on your door, leave the country and move to one where the education system isn't run by zealots. Come to the United States. One of our founding tenets is religious freedom - including the freedom to not be religious - and our president is just letting everybody in right now. So, are we good...or do you still have a problem with me having a belief you don't like?
Because I've been a moderator elsewhere. And 1001001, among others, have complained about me posting political views. Having enforced rules in another forum, I choose to follow the rules in a forum I'm not moderating. Think of it as an Italian police officer obeying the local laws on a trip to England. In other words, you can't refute what I said so you declare it to be ridiculous. Clever, but I've seen the tactic before. People probably thought Pasteur was full of it, too. I had nothing to do with that. The school system I work for won't even allow Chrustmas carols. I find atheism equally fantastical. It is the belief that science will one day prove what it currently debunks.
There is only the One True Church of the Heavy Lift: Thy rods and Thy five segment solids—they comfort me.
It is important to recognize that you have provided no meaningful scientific evidence whatsoever. You're just relying on the same tactic Timewalker tried: you can't refute it so you insult it. As debate tactics go, that ranks right up with waving your hand in front of my face and saying "these aren't the droids you're looking for".
Clearly you're not the only one who believes this stuff, or you'd be a church of one. I never said YOU are going out of your way. But there are many who do go out of their way. If you post in a public thread, you shouldn't be surprised to discover that some people discover something you've said that either pleases or displeases them and they may decide to comment on it. Don't flatter yourself, btw. I'm hardly "shaken to the bone" by what you've said here. You're not among the politicians who are determined to do an end run around the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (hint: I'm Canadian) and proselytize public school kids as young as 5 years old. Back at'cha. Okay, we agree on this (except I attended public schools and had to put up with mandatory morning prayer depending on which teachers did it, from Grade 1 until the year I was a student teacher at a public elementary school and was ordered to participate in religious rituals against my will and conscience). Oh, please. Spare me the "land of the free" speech. The last time I was in your country was in 1987, at a weekend Doctor Who fan event, and have had no reason to want to return since then. You're making quite a number of unjustified assumptions. I know that the zealots running my province (Alberta, which is in Western Canada) will not have any effect on you or your family. What they are gung-ho about doing is shoehorning their religious beliefs into the K-6 school curriculum, no matter which system the kids attend. This stuff is already taught in the Catholic system, so I assume those parents don't mind. But to proselytize kids in the public system and other systems - some of which are faith-based but not Christian - is unacceptable. It goes against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees freedom of religion (the conservatives in this country can't seem to wrap their minds around the idea that this part of the Charter also means freedom from religion as well) by presenting Christianity not in a neutral way as a comparative religion unit should do, but as factual, over and above other faiths, or atheism. For some bizarre reason, I and people like me tend to feel rather insulted when told that because we're atheists, we are immoral people with no reason not to commit every crime or unethical act imaginable. And this is the kind of bullshit school kids will be exposed to with this curriculum. The only part of your long-winded list of "remedies" that is actually realistic in this situation is what I've been suggesting to the numerous people who are angry about this situation and considering steps such as leaving the province (since you could run a cow pie under any conservative banner here and it would be elected): Homeschooling. It's what I'd be doing if I had kids who would be subjected to this. Most people think of homeschooling as faith-based, done by parents who don't think any formal school system could ever be "moral" enough, but of course anyone can homeschool their kids as long as they jump through all the legal hoops. Religious proselytizing isn't the only problem with this new curriculum, of course. There are other issues that have teachers and parents and many of the general public angry about it. But since we're not discussing those issues here, I won't go into them. Y'know, people on this forum like accusing me of taking things personally... like I said, it's not you I have the problem with. It's the beliefs. If you insist on taking that as a personal affront, be my guest. It's your blood pressure. So because you've been a moderator elsewhere, that gives you dictatorial rights here? Funny... I'm a moderator and admin on other forums, yet I know that doesn't give me the right to dictate what's allowed on this forum. For some reason I'm having thoughts of going to the kitchen and pouring myself a glass of milk. That's about the sum total of what Pasteur means to me at this point. That's unfortunate. One of my fannish activities is writing filksongs. Christmas carols provide great source material for when I don't feel like composing a new melody. You have just shown that you have no clue what atheism is. Your second sentence doesn't even make sense.
Since you don't seem to know what atheism is, I suggest you visit this little-know website called Wikipedia. They sum it up very concisely:
"It annoys me that the burden of proof is on us. It should be "You came up with the idea. Why do you believe it?" I could tell you I've got superpowers. But I can't go up to people saying "Prove I can't fly." They'd go: "What do you mean 'Prove you can't fly'? Prove you can!"" "Saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not going skiing is a hobby." -- Ricky Gervais